Task: fly fishing, Bamboo rods. Steelhead

I have not posted in quite some time.  But i logged on and to my suprise there was a fly fishing task,  and the new orvis searies.......
Right now at this very moment i am wrapping guides , doing some intermediat's, and framing my guides in black silk.  so seeing as this 000 thread can make one crazy after a couple days of  solid wrapping i welcome a chance to talk about something not only dear to me but a subject i know well.   Fly fishing!
This 'story'  comes recent.  Seeing how the rainbow are making their annual spawning migration up stream.  Here in southern ontario we have a real nice shot at them being compleetly sourounded by the largest freshwater lakes on the planet.   I decided ( because i build cane rods)  to try something i read about in an old book of another rod builder named garrison.  He apparently caught a salmon on a #3 weight bamboo rod!   sounds impressive?  Naturally i decided this year to resolve to accomplish the same.  Just swaping the salmon to a steelhead.  which they run this year on avg. 7.5-11.5 lbs.  so nearly the same only these fish run hard everytime!
So since im  purely a fly-fisherman since jan. i took up the challange.  starting by fishing in jan.  in canada.  the first few times out were mostly frozen guides and line.  they were there but got nothing. and so on untill a couple weeks ago when the time came and they came out of the lake and up the river by the thousands.  Here we also had a warm snap  heat wave actually it caused my friend to be burnt and more importently it made the early black stone fly hatch boom at once!   so i got video/ some shots of the trout taking stone-flys off the surface and grabbed my #3 wt.   on the second day i ended up hooking into one.  not a large fish more on the small side,  just over 4 lbs.  
Alas i was sad,  i needed a bigger fish to compair for one and second i was hopeing my rod would break.... but it didnt,  now the fish are up the river doing there thing.  And i am taking a break making some bamboo rods and waiting for them to come back down the river HUNGRY!  i
In the next couple/few days i should have my anwser.   Can i get a 8 lb rainbow on a #3 wt cane rod like garrison did??  I will not put this rod down untill i know.    and if it breaks  i can get rid of my last rod with standard  metal ferrules!  and make myself a new 3 weight with bamboo ferrules   either way i will come out a winner!